


if I bleed, you'll be the last to know

by dearzoemurphy



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27889225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearzoemurphy/pseuds/dearzoemurphy
Summary: Britta knows that she really shouldn’t be putting herself in this hopeless situation. And yet, here she is, sitting on a beat up leather couch in the center of Jeff Winger’s living room for what must be close to the hundredth time that summer.AU where Jeff chose Britta at the Transfer Dance.
Relationships: Britta Perry/Jeff Winger
Comments: 16
Kudos: 40





	if I bleed, you'll be the last to know

**Author's Note:**

> not going to lie, this is a little weird and experimental and mostly written in present tense (and heavily inspired by the number of times that I listened to the song Cruel Summer today) but regardless of all that, I hope you enjoy!!

Britta knows that she really shouldn’t be putting herself in this hopeless situation. And yet, here she is, sitting on a beat up leather couch in the center of Jeff Winger’s living room for what must be close to the hundredth time that summer.

“Can I get you anything? Water? Tea? I might have some of the gross shit that you brought over last time left in my fridge,” he says. He’d put on a fuzzy green robe before leaving his bedroom, making the sight of him rooting around in one of his cabinets even more absurd than it already was.

“Kombucha has numerous health benefits, Jeff. It’s not _just_ gross shit,” she protests, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes so as to look away from him.

“Sure, sure. It’s hippie shit with live things growing in it that I’m supposed to ingest without asking any further questions.”

“You could say the same thing about yogurt!”

He freezes in place. “Huh. I guess you could.”

Deciding that she’s tired of sitting on the couch and listening to him deliberate, Britta stands up and makes her way to the kitchen. She’s not exactly sure why she keeps coming back here almost every night when he does or says something incredibly infuriating every time.

But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that some nights, they don’t even have sex.

Sometimes, they go out to the little rundown bar a few blocks away and sing karaoke for a crowd that doesn’t have any idea who they are. Some evenings are spent with boxes of Chinese takeout and a made-for-TV edit of a blockbuster from several years ago, one that Britta can complain about and Jeff can defend for the sole purpose of arguing with her. And, on an extremely rare occasion, they’ll stumble out of a bar long after the official last call, fingers laced together as they walk down the street towards a park that Jeff only knows about because a woman he dogsat for once wanted him to take her dogs there. Sometimes, he rambles about how he could see himself bringing his kids to a park like that someday. Sometimes, Britta clings to his arm and looks up to his face in the orange glow of the street lamps and thinks that someday, she might be able to say that she loves him.

It’s new, that’s for sure. It’s frustrating, too, because she’s too ashamed to even say it in her head.

 _“It’s not worth it to say it,”_ she thinks, _“He’s not worth the effort of saying it.”_

Sometimes, she wonders what could have possibly possessed her to fight with another grown woman for the right to sleep with Jeffery Tobias Winger. Some nights, she remembers as he worships every inch of her body, even the parts that she doesn’t believe deserve to be looked at. Other nights, she grabs a bottle of whatever is closest and drinks the thought away.

She’s not sure if being with him makes her love or hate herself more. When he looks at her like she hung up the moon and the stars just for him, she really has no clue if she should feel pride or shame at the fact that she conned a grown man into thinking that she was good enough to do anything remotely like that.

They hadn’t told any of their other friends. Obviously. Shirley was the only one who knew that they’d slept together at all, and Britta wasn’t keen on the idea of filling her and the rest of the group in on her and Jeff’s extracurricular activities. It wasn’t like it was a purposeful secret. They’d never spoken about the need to keep it under wraps, they just did. (Though to be fair, they didn’t speak about a lot of things. They both knew it was easier that way.)

There was only once all summer when they’d had a serious, sober conversation. Britta had asked - apropos of nothing - why he’d chosen her over Slater. He’d given her That Look, then said; “You’re better. I can’t imagine a world where anyone would choose Michelle when they could have you.”

If there were two things that Britta hated, they were unnecessary female competition and men being possessive over women. But her hatred for both of those things disappeared when she looked into his eyes and kissed him on the park bench like the rest of the world had melted away.

She’s thinking about that night when she stands right beside Jeff in the kitchen as he pulls down a box full of tea bags. A box she had brought over a couple months ago, near the beginning of summer.

“Looks like all we have left is Earl Grey,” he says, sighing as he pulls out two bags and goes to heat up the water in the kettle that she bought for him. This summer had turned him into a tea drinker. Maybe it was because he’d become accustomed to the taste of it being on Britta’s lips. Maybe it was his way of telling her that he loved her without having to make his mouth form the words.

“That’s okay,” she replies.

“You know, only two more weeks before we’re back at school,” he remarks, turning away from the kettle on the stove and towards her.

“Don’t make me think about that now,” she says, stepping closer. She hops up onto her tiptoes so that she can more easily kiss him, her arms lazily wrapping around his torso, fingers finding purchase in the fabric of his robe.

He kisses back, hand combing through her messy curls.

“I won’t,” he murmurs, his mouth only a centimeter away from her nose, “but why did you say that like it’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard?”

 _“Because it is,”_ she wants to say. _“Because it means that this all is going to end. It means that you’ll start making goo-goo eyes at Annie again and everyone will be asking a lot of questions and I’ll have to tell people how I spent my summer without talking about you. And I’ll have to see Slater without being able to rub this in her face. And we’ll fall back into our old habits, and I won’t ever see you outside of school. And when I’m not spending time with you, I’ll just feel ashamed for ever feeling like this.”_

She doesn’t say any of that. Instead, she says; “I’m just not ready to worry about homework again.”

He laughs and draws her closer to press a kiss to her temple. “Of course. For a second, I thought that you might say that you’re going to miss hanging out with me this much.”

She blinks. “Would that have been a bad thing?”

“No,” he says, pulling away to get two mugs out of the cabinet, “For what it’s worth, _I’ll_ miss hanging out with _you_.”

Britta knows that she shouldn’t feel the sudden swell of pride that she does. Nor should she follow it with a soft _“me too”_.

He turns the stove off and moves to pour hot water into each of their mugs, slipping a tea bag into each one once they’re full.

“We’ve still got two weeks. And besides, we won’t be so busy during the semester that we can’t spend _any_ time together.”

She swallows and nods. It’s not for lack of free time that none of this will be the same once they’re back in school. It’s everything else.

Britta knows this, and yet, she doesn’t say anything. She smiles at Jeff when he hands her a mug so that she can decide how long she wants her tea to steep.

She feels a new pain in her chest when he wraps one arm around her shoulders and plants another kiss on the top of her head.

 _“I love you,”_ she says, quietly, within her own head, _“It’s not worth much, but I do.”_

Much to her own surprise, _that_ isn’t the worst thing she’s ever heard. So she says it again, loud enough that he can hear it.

He looks at her. Not quite with That Look; more with shock and bewilderment.

“I’m sorry, I-”

“You didn’t have to say that,” he says. She feels her heart sinking, starting to curse herself for impulsively crossing the line. She’d been right; he wasn’t worth it.

“I already knew.”

It’s Britta’s turn for shock and bewilderment. “You did?”

“Of course. Just like you knew that I love you,” he confirms, hesitating before the last few words as if he’s unsure about whether or not he’s allowed to say them.

He is, and she tells him by abandoning her mug on the counter and wrapping herself around him, pulling him as close to her as she possibly can. He replies in kind, the two of them tangling themselves together in a type of knot that only they could ever hope to understand.

Even though she resents how it sounds like a line from a low budget rom-com, she knows in her heart that this isn’t quite a hopeless situation anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, please leave any thoughts/opinions/etc. down below!! especially since this was so different from how I usually write, I probably couldn't maintain this style for long pieces, but it was fun to play with here.


End file.
